Mike Ness is now closer to 50 than 40. At just above average height he’s shorter than many of his hero-worshipping fans probably realize. He’s also lost more slicked-back hair on his head — and gained more gray ones on his face — since the last time we met, six years ago over sushi in Fullerton, when Social Distortion was about to drop its first album in almost a decade.

But at a glance he’s still the epitome of mean, fiercely intimidating even while relaxing in a large corner booth at a Costa Mesa café.

He’s been boxing a lot lately, he mentions when I bring up his Zen-cool demeanor — it’s meditative, and a smarter way of occasionally lifting the safety-latch on his seemingly permanent aggression. I don’t doubt he’s capable of pounding anyone who crosses him into the ground. And still there’s a duality to Ness at midlife, a distinct divide between the tough-guy persona developed since his anarchic youth and the more compassionate family man he’s become.

It’s a chilly Thursday morning when we catch up at Mother’s Market, the sun peeking out during a brief break in the pre-Christmas drenching. He has left his leather jacket at home in Newport Beach in favor of a vintage dark-blue Cardigan sweater to cover his plain white T-shirt. Slap on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and you might mistake Social D’s leader for a community college poetry teacher.

Of course, there are still those tell-tale tattoos across his arms. His wife’s name, Christine Marie, remains prominent just below his Adam’s apple. And that isn’t a gangbanger tear by his left eye — it’s an anchor.

Sit him down to an interview — like this one, to discuss the seventh Social Distortion album, Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes, out Jan. 18 — and Ness can quickly turn fidgety, uncomfortable, even a little insecure. It’s the unavoidable part of being a rock star that this fearsome dude dreads, like a school kid waiting on a grade for a test he knows he bombed.

And it’s easy to sense: “Is this something that causes …”

“… anxiety?” he finished, as we settled in for some coffee and eggs. “Yeah.”

He always graciously fulfills requests to chat; in the past 15 years we must have spoken at least 10 times, commiserating and chuckling over how Orange County — and punk rock — keep changing. Every time, however, there’s initial reticence to overcome, jitters that accompany his friendly warmth, and a palpable unease about having to discuss his music too deeply.

“It’s OK if it’s like this,” he admits as we huddle out of sight of other customers. “Like, I’m here to do this today. I don’t have a show tonight, I don’t have rehearsal.” He can cope with some brain-picking while not having his performance concentration broken.

He’d rather not deal with such distractions next week, when Social Distortion is slated to celebrate House of Blues Anaheim’s 10th anniversary with a sold-out gig on Wednesday, or later in the month, when the group — with Jonny Wickersham on guitar, Brent Harding on bass and now David Hidalgo Jr. (son of Los Lobos‘ singer-guitarist) on drums — will play three packed dates at the Hollywood Palladium.

But even when he’s mentally prepared for such press encounters, that doesn’t necessarily deter the headaches.

“Dude, I was in Europe, and these (bleepin’) Germans are asking me, ‘Mike, vhy so long? Vhy does it take six years to put out a new record? Vhy?’ I’m like, ‘Look, pal … fortunately I have a life outside the band.”

He isn’t just rationalizing the time away. Yes, 72 months is a long wait between albums by any standard. But after global touring for three years behind 2004’s Sex, Love and Rock ’n’ Roll and indulging another cross-country solo jaunt that included a 2008 appearance at Stagecoach, the annual country music festival in Indio, “I’ve had maybe nine months of just solid personal time. The rest has been work.”

“I’m getting the gaps (between albums) to be a little bit shorter,” he points out, chuckling. “I’ve gotten it from eight to six. Now I might be able to get it from six to four.”

Same Sources, New Sound

The wait, as usual, has been worth it: Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes, the band’s first foray for punk mainstay Epitaph Records, is one of the best sets Ness has ever recorded.

Self-producing its 10 songs (plus first-ever instrumental, “Road Zombie”), he has advanced his hard-nosed rebel rock by taking cues once again from the same sources of inspiration in place since 1988’s turning-point album Prison Bound, a decidedly rootsier beast than its seminal SoCal-punk predecessor Mommy’s Little Monster five years earlier.

Unmistakably so, too, as the just-released track “California (Hustle and Flow)” introduces die-hards to a whole new Social D sound, thick with Glimmer Twins swagger, a fat T. Rex riff and soul-sister backing vocals. All that’s missing are Memphis horns.

Ness always was a storytelling classicist who never saw the point of songs with too many chords or fancy bridges. But this time he’s unabashedly accessible about his approach, without ever forsaking his gruffly melodic bark or signature fuzz-crunch of guitars. “Far Side of Nowhere,” for starters, has the crisp jangle of fine Tom Petty; “Gimme the Sweet and Lowdown” adds Fountains of Wayne power-pop flavor to its Celtic punk propulsion.

And the autobiographical “Writing on the Wall” — one of the most vulnerable pieces Ness has penned, about coping with his oldest son Julian growing up — as well as the blues-y character sketch “Bakersfield” recaptures the anthemic feel of primo Lynyrd Skynyrd and the restlessness and yearning of choice Springsteen, a newer influence on Ness. (Also a recurring special guest: the Boss turned up for four songs during a Social D set at the famous Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J., in 2008; Ness returned the favor at the L.A. Sports Arena the following year, joining Springsteen for “The Rising” and “Bad Luck.”)

Frankly, the new album’s initial single, “Machine Gun Blues,” is simultaneously the most Social D-ish thing on the record and an old-hat anomaly; little else on Hard Times resembles it. Fans might have sensed a change was coming after the band’s streamed-online set at KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas last month. Only two selections, “Ball and Chain” and “Story of My Life,” were obvious. The rest were obscure but complementary: “Through These Eyes,” “So Far Away,” “Cold Feelings.”

Not everyone was so pleased by the performance. But Ness is accustomed to dealing with spoiled expectations.

“I remember when I wrote Prison Bound — that was a definite shift into American roots music and incorporating that with punk rock. It was a huge risk. We probably lost some fans over that. But now ‘Prison Bound’ (the song) can sometimes be the highlight of a set these days.”

“Honestly, I still write records to please myself,” Ness says, adding another twist: “I don’t only want to write about my own life.” This from the guy whose last album was his most autobiographical ever, springing to life after the 2000 death of childhood friend and original Social Distortion guitarist Dennis Danell.

Yet, since then, he’s been rethinking the fury that has fueled him both in the band and at home: “Anger for me … growing up, where I was on my own at 15, it was a survival thing. But in my parenting, for instance, that anger has not done any good. I had to go to therapy to grab some new tools, because mine don’t really work for this job. They work fine for running a crew, but you can’t run your family with an iron fist — it’ll backfire on you.”

As for the old assertion that punk rock would change the world by tearing down the establishment and discarding all the rules, Ness, still punk to his core, nonetheless seems dubious.

“You know, we (punks) used to give the hippies such (crap), but at least the hippies had some kind of global awareness. They had an objective: They were protesting war. They at least were paying attention. Punk rock, let’s get honest, was narcissistic.”

“Not all of it,” I countered.

“The Clash were different, obviously,” he agreed. “But so much of punk was just ‘destroy everything’ — except you can’t destroy (things) if you don’t have a vision for what you want to put there in its place. In my eyes (punk) was kinda like a runaway train. There was no foresight.”

These days Ness is more politically motivated, though his ire is directed less at authority figures and more toward apathy he spots all over O.C.

“Everyone is just wrapped up in their own self-importance and success. I mean, this is a Mecca of the surf and skate industry, right? And how many of these multimillion-dollar companies out here are doing anything to protect the very environment that they thrive in?”

Don’t get him started on Irvine, either: “Might as well be the Berlin Wall over there.”

All of this filters into these Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes, which only seem streamlined at surface level; Ness’ fire continues to blaze intensely as he matures. “My wife says it’s my saving grace — I’m a pain in the ass, but I always have this desire to change.”

He remains forever wary of “getting painted into this corner where one thing is all I can do” — so he couldn’t care less if you think Social Distortion is starting to sound like the Black Crowes.

“Yeah, there’ll be some people who’ll probably say, ‘What are they, a classic rock band now?’ Well … yeah, we are! We’ve been doing this for 30 years. You got a (bleeping) problem with that?!”

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.